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The use of artificial insemination (AI) has been of enormous economic benefit for dairy farmers in many countries such as Ireland through the genetic improvement of their stock. Despite these benefits a significant proportion of dairy farmers continue to use natural mating over AI. Previous research has found that the cost of semen, the cost of insemination and success rate all affect the probability of farmers using AI. Using a nationally representative panel dataset, this paper examined if there were any farm or farmer characteristics that affected the probability of dairy farmers using AI. Modelling the farm factors driving the uptake of AI enables the understanding of the differences between various types of landowners which should in turn better equip policymakers to design policies and programs that efficiently promote good reproductive management. The results in this paper suggest that there is significant heterogeneity among farm households in relation to the uptake of AI with both characteristics of the farmer as well as structural farm factors all found to significantly affect the probability of a farmer adopting this agricultural innovation.

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Using Ireland as a case study, the overall aim of this paper is to determine if decoupled payments affect farmers' behaviour. Using a dynamic, multi product, partial equilibrium model of the EU agricultural sector, this paper first compares levels of production that would be expected if decoupled payments had no impact on farmers' activity with actual observed outcomes. Second this paper compares cereal and cattle farmers' profitability prior to decoupling with that observed after the introduction of decoupled payments. The analysis presented here would suggest that decoupled payments do still maintain a significant effect on agricultural activity with farmers using this new form of support to partly subsidise unprofitable farm production.